Canadian homeowners, renters need online registry of property’s flood claims, academic says

As storms causing flooding in urban areas become more frequent and severe, Canada needs a registry of homes, where incidents of flooding can be tracked, to help mitigate risk as storms become more frequent and severe, according to one academic.

Having a registry similar to Carfax or CarProof’s registries for automobiles’ histories would help homeowners know the risk of flooding in their own home and neighbourhood, argues Ted Kesik, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.

“I want the same thing for basement flooding,” he said. “I want to type in the address and I want to know the history.” Kesik was presenting his thoughts during the Urban/Basement Flooding Symposium held by the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction in Toronto last week.

Insurers and municipalities often have the data for homes flood histories, but there hasn’t been a cohesive way to share that information, Kesik pointed out.

For a potential home buyer or renter to know the insurance claims history on a home would be useful if that person would then be able to know what mitigation efforts they could make to prevent basement flooding, he noted.

Admittedly, creating such a registry would be a difficult task, requiring cooperation from various levels of government and the insurance industry.

Taking on the challenge of urban flooding will require research and development on the part of the insurance industry, as well as top-down leadership from senior levels of government that can provide the budget for infrastructure improvements and R&D projects, Kesik noted.

More than that, though, the challenge will be managing consumer expectation and taking on cultural barriers, he said.

“The expectation today is that the basement is like the rest of our house,” he said. That means that claims have become more expensive, as people create comfortable living spaces in their basements that also store valuables.

In terms of an online registry for properties, privacy is also a potential concern, but Kesik argues that names wouldn’t have to be attached to a registry.

While many people may not want information about their property to be shared, the urban flooding issue is a true health and safety concern, as well as an economic one, he said.

“Is it personal information or is it an address? I think it’s an address.”